When the Rest of Heaven Was Blue
by Ruuger
Summary: After Willow's spell goes wrong during a mission, Spike and Buffy end up having to face the demons in their relationship. Set in a vague post-everything future where Spike and Buffy are an established couple. No spoilers for the comics.
1. Chapter 1

When Buffy opened her eyes, she immediately knew that Willow's spell had gone wrong.

For one, there was that odd tingling sensation which she attributed to her slayer senses - a subtle itch building at the base of her spine that told her that there was something wrong with the world. It was a feeling she had learned to recognise based on the experience gained from having been at the receiving end of more than one failed Willow-special.

But what most of all clued her in on the whole spell-going-awry business this time was that when she had closed her eyes - just to blink, because the rain was getting into her eyes - she had been on a small back alley, fighting two vampires back-to-back with Spike, and when she opened them, she was in a stable.

With a horse.

A beautiful white horse that was looking at her curiously with its head tilted to the side in an oddly familiar angle.

Oh god.

She whirled around to make sure that Spike - and the vampires they had been fighting - weren't behind her. When a quick scan of the room confirmed that there were no vampires, neither friend nor foe, anywhere near, Buffy dropped her sword and took a tentative step towards the horse. The animal was looking at her warily, but didn't seem to be afraid, and so she carefully reached out her hand to touch it. The horse whinnied gently, its hot breath ticking her palm as it nuzzled against her fingers.

Oh god.

She took a deep breath to calm herself, trying to swallow past the heavy lump rising in her throat as she gently petted the horse. "Spike? Is that you?"

"Over here, love."

Buffy jumped at the sound of his voice, startling the horse which reared back and crashed into the wooden wall of the stall. Her first thought was "But he didn't even move his lips!" until her brain caught up with her ears and informed her that the voice had actually come from behind her.

When she turned around, she saw a familiar hand with black-laquered nails appear from behind a pile of wooden crates, followed an equally familiar blond head. Spike stopped run his hand through his hair to brush away the straws caught between the curls and then looked around blearily until he spotted Buffy. "You planning on helping me up, or is this just a spectator sport?"

Almost laughing with relief, Buffy crossed the room with a few running steps. When she reached Spike, she took his hand and gently helped him to his feet. "Sorry, I thought you were a horse."

Spike swayed as he stood up, and Buffy wrapped her arm around his waist to support him, careful not to touch the large patch of blood on his side. He hissed in pain when she walked him across the crates.

"What the hell are you on about?"

"A horse." She pointed at the animal that was still eyeing them suspiciously from the back of the stall. "That horse. I thought Willow's spell had gone wrong."

With the worst crisis now momentarily averted, Buffy took a moment to get a better look at their surroundings. There was very little light trickling in through the layers of dirt on the small windows, but she could see that they were standing in front of a row of wooden stalls, empty but for the one holding the white horse, while a tall pile of hay and stacked crates occupied most of the other side of the room. On the dirty stone walls tools and other implements made of cast iron and leather made the room seem like a Victorian BDSM dungeon. The air was thick with dust, and when she breathed, the overpowering smell of animals and straw made her nose tickle.

She shrugged. "Well, more wrong."

Spike put his weight on her, leaning down to whisper in her ear. "A stallion of your own, eh? What would-" He leaned further down and from the corner of her eye she could see his brow crease into a frown.

Suddenly he pulled away from her. "Oh, ha, bloody, ha, Slayer. The vampires could still be watching so let us not waste an opportunity to remind the world that Spike's a bloody gelding."

Buffy was used to his moodswings, which had only seemed to grow worse since Angel's shanshu, but they were on a mission, stuck in a stable somewhere - and some_when_ - that was not where they had been just five minutes earlier, and she did not have the time or the patience to play "mollycoddle the vampire" as Spike would probably put it.

She grabbed Spike's arm to keep him from falling down on his face, and forcibly guided him to sit down on one of the crates. They both winced as the movement aggravated the wound on his side, but she ignored the pang of guilt and just took his face between her hand to make him look her in the eye.

"What the hell are you talking about? And what's a gelding?"

He stared at her, his anger fading to confusion, and then shook his head.

"Sorry pet, I'm just..." He closed his eyes and rubbed his neck. "Just feeling a bit strange, is all. It's like-" Looking at Buffy from under his lashes, he gave her an amused smile. "I'd say it feels like someone's walking on my grave, but that doesn't really work for a vampire."

He shrugged. "Must be just the after effects of the spell. And getting a sword through my guts isn't helping either."

Buffy sat down next to him, and gently pulled his coat away to have a better look at the wound. The hem of his shirt was soaked with blood, and he winced when she pulled it up to see the wound. The wound itself was not as bad as she had feared, a clean cut that went straight through his abdomen, and though it was still bleeding, the blood was just oozing from the wound instead of the gushing that she would have expected if he had been a human. What worried her, however, was the small web of what looked like black veins spreading from the wound towards his heart.

"Is it bad?" she asked, not entirely managing to keep the worry out of her voice. Spike just shrugged again. Buffy couldn't help noticing that the gesture was smaller and more careful than before.

"Hurts like a bitch, but I'll manage. Just give me a mo and I'll be as good as new."

She nodded and gently covered the wound with his shirt again.

"Willow said that the spell will return us to the exact moment when we left, so it doesn't matter how long we are here. We can rest for a bit before deciding what to do, wait for your vampy-healing midichlorians to start working."

Spike gave her a curious look. "Midichlorians?"

Buffy groaned. "I've been spending way too much time with Andrew, haven't I? When we get back, I'm going to make Giles promise that I never again have to make a mission plan with that little twerp. In fact, I'm going to make him promise I never have to make a mission plan, period. Because planning and Buffy are totally un-mixy things."

"Don't sell yourself short, pet. You've got plenty of planning skills. Just remember to schedule in a few quickies, and you won't find me complaining."

She playfully swatted away the hand that was making its way up her thigh - a vampire shish-kebab he may be, but his libido was still very much unaffected - before continuing. "This one, I'm gonna blame on Andrew, though. I mean, I know technically this was probably all Willow's fault, but I'm sure I can come up with some way to blame this on him as well."

She carefully wrapped her arm around his waist and pulled him closer, ignoring the slippery touch of his bloodstained clothes. "So where is your grave, anyway?"

"That your idea of small talk, Slayer?" He chuckled. "Never had one, actually. Dru took me with her and buried me in the woods somewhere near Hampsted Heath. Wasn't gone long enough for anyone but my mother to miss me and when I came back, I-"

Buffy staggered at the absence of contact when Spike abruptly stood up and walked to the doors.

"We should leave," he said, glancing up at the small windows, "The sun's low so it must be late afternoon out there. We have to leave as soon as it's dark so we can get the cup and get back tonight."

Buffy wanted to ask him to come back and tell her what was really going on, but even if they did have all the time in the world from the point of view of the future, she knew he did have a point, even if his sudden sense of urgency seemed to be prompted by matters other than the actual facts of the mission. The longer they remained in the stables, the more likely they were to be caught by someone, and not even knowing when or where they currently were, she didn't particularly want to take that risk.

She stood up and picked up her sword from the floor.

"Do you still have the spell to get us back?" he asked.

Buffy fished the small leather pouch from her pocket and nodded.

The plan had been simple - at least as soon as Giles had locked Andrew out of the conference room, bringing to an end his lecture on the subject of "time travel as demonstrated by the Top 5 Star Trek episodes not featuring the Borg". Their mission had been to find and bring back an artifact that Giles called "the Cup of Eternal Restoration, and the next person to call it the Holy Grail will bloody well find out where the name Ripper comes from" - the only thing left that could save a group of slayers who had been poisoned by a vengeful witch.

The problem was that the cave that was supposed to hold the cup was now a construction site for a new shopping mall, and according to the various finding spells Willow and the coven had performed, the cup had been destroyed by the builders. Now, the only way to retrieve the cup was to travel three months back in time to before the first work on the construction site had started.

Buffy looked at the small pouch in her hand. "We can't go back without the cup. According to Giles the ritual for the spell can't be performed again until next summer, so if we go back now, the girls will die before we can try again."

"How about the spell to get the Grail?" Spike asked, while surreptitiously trying to lean to the wall without her noticing. "Any idea if it'll still work even if we're not where we're supposed to be?".

"I think so. The spell's supposed to create an illusion of the cup in the cave to keep us from changing history; I don't think it has a time limit."

Spike nodded. "And according to Giles, no-one has touched the cup since the middle ages, so that shouldn't be a problem either." He pushed away from the wall. "C'mon. Let's find out if we're even in England any more."

Buffy walked to the door, opened it to a narrow slit and looked out. The stable door opened into a shade, and after a few seconds, she could feel Spike behind her leaning in for a look.

The street outside was definitely not the one they had left. Gone were the parked cars and colourful billboards, in their stead now a cobbled road with horse carriages rumbling past the stable every now and then. There weren't many people around - she could see a two men talking in front of a small shop across the street, and a woman with a small child walking past the stables. Ignoring the possibility that they had somehow ended up in the middle of a really weird ren fair, based on the clothes the people were wearing, Buffy concluded that they had been transported to a time period which she could confidently call "history", or possibly "the olden times". For anything more specific, she would need to ask Spike.

She turned around, only to bump into Spike. He was frozen in place, still staring at something on the street outside, looking like he had just seen a ghost. Buffy quickly glanced behind her to see what had shocked him, but she could see nothing that should have elicited such a reaction from him.

She touched his arm, trying to catch his attention. "Spike? What's wrong?"

Spike's fingers splintering the wood as he held onto the frame.

"That..." He looked down at her, his eyes wide and terrified. "That was my mum."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: I don't actually post at fanfiction . net anymore, but I just remembered that I had promised to finish my wips here, so here I am - for the moment at least :)

If you're interested in other fic I've written in the last two years (including some spuffy), you can find them at Archive of Our Own (http : / / archiveofourown . org/users/Ruuger/works (remove the spaces)). If you want to bookmark my fic, please bookmark there instead of here since I'm planning to delete my account here after I finish my wips.

* . * . ** . * . ** . * . *

There was a quiet rumble of thunder in the distance, and when Buffy glanced out of the door, she could see people on the street hurrying for shelter as the first few droplets of rain pockmarked the dusty street. The woman - Spike's mother - had long ago disappeared around a corner, but Spike was still standing in the doorway, staring after her. Buffy had often marvelled at how eerily still he could be when he wanted - not breathing, not moving, just standing and waiting like a clothed marble statue when he was hunting something. The way he was now, however, with his fingers burrowing into the wooden frame of the door and his eyes fixed unseeingly into the distance, was something completely different.

Remaining by his side, Buffy absently stroked Spike's arm as she tried to wrap her own mind around the reality of their situation. She hadn't been able to get any further explanation out of him of what exactly it was that he had seen, and part of her was afraid to even ask. To have been magicked into the past was one thing - to have been magicked into iSpike's/i past was another, and one that opened a Pandora's box worth of questions on subjects the two of them had so far spent several years successfully avoiding talking about.  
She ran her hand down Spike's arm one last time, finding his hand and gently prying his fingers off the splintered door frame. He resisted only for a second, reluctantly taking his eyes off the street as she wrapped her arm around his waist and then led him back to the crates. She carefully helped him sit down, taking a seat next to him.

"What did you see?"

He was quiet for a long time, his eyes still fixed on the door as if he could see right through it.

"It was my mum," he said finally. "The woman who walked past us, it was her."  
Buffy frowned, berating herself for not having had the foresight to run outside and grab the woman's arm to make sure she was real. With the victory over The First having come so easily (and she had to admit that it had been easy, even if the price had been high), she had never quite managed to shake off the nagging doubt whether they had really won at all. Add time travel to the mix and she wouldn't have been surprised to find eyeless goons lurking in the stalls. Octopus razor, or something like that. And if the woman really was Spike's mother, and not a figment of The First... Buffy wasn't sure which was the explanation she would have preferred. Because if she was honest, when it came down to it she had to admit that she had a much better track record in battling ancient evils than having heart-to-heart discussions with boyfriends.

"Are you sure it was her and not the First? I thought you killed..." The words slipped out unthinkingly, the first thought at the top her mind. Mouth, by-pass brain: no filter. She swallowed down the end of the sentence when she saw the horrified look on his face. "I thought... Angel said-"

The change in Spike's expression was so stark that he could have just as well put on his game face. "Oh, Angel said so, did he?"

He stood up and stalked to the other side of the room, eliciting a suspicious glare from the horse as he marched past it. His outburst was slightly hindered by the fact that he could hardly move without grimacing in pain, but that didn't stop him from trying. "Told you he killed his family and because Angel is such a bleeding platonic model of a vampire, if Angel killed his family, then all vampires must have done it."

Buffy buried her face in her hands and waited while Spike went through his usual litany of insults about the state of Angel's hair, soul, sexual prowess and intelligence.

"Angel said you killed your mother," she said when he had finally reached the end of both his pacing and his tirade. The demon was out of the basket, so she might as well finally deal with it. "Did you?"

He stopped in mid-pace, his face completely unreadable. "I had to! She was a vampire!"

Buffy stared at him, suddenly speechless again. Of all the answers she had expected from him, that was so far off the top of the list it wasn't even on the same paper. Possibly not even on the same list. She suddenly found herself wishing that she had actually read the damn Vampyre book Giles had given her all those years ago. "Your mother was a vampire? Then how did..."

Spike's jaw twitched as he stared at her, his eyes narrowing. She recognised the familiar fight-or-flight stance - could imagine the insults and obscenities already forming on his lips - but then suddenly he deflated as if he had exhausted whatever mental resources had fueled his rage. Like a candle being snuffed the hint of golden yellow in his eyes faded back into blue, leaving behind only the silent defeat that she had seen on his face far too often of late. The familiarity of that look terrified her every time, because this time she couldn't trust on magic snow to save them.

He returned to the crate, gingerly holding his side, and then sat down heavily, as far away from her as possible.

"Thank you ever so much for having faith in my humanity. Was born a human being, you know." He looked at her, clearly waiting for a response, but she didn't have one to give. What she wanted was to reach over and pull him to her, to apologise and to comfort him in gestures if not in words, but she wasn't sure he would let her.

"I turned her, okay," he said quietly. "She was dying of consumption and I turned her so that she'd be well again, and then she was doing things that ino/i mother should be doing and I had to kill her." He shoved his hand into the pocket of his duster and pulled out his cigarettes, only to find the pack empty. He swore and crumpled the pack, throwing it angrily at the wall. "And you can go ahead and sing the bloody ditty if you don't believe me, but it wasn't the First. It was her."

Buffy bit her lip in an effort not to contradict him. Spike had hardly been a reliable witness the last time he'd been seeing dead people - more dead than usual, that is - so as much as she wanted to believe him, she wasn't sure if she could trust his judgement. But wasn't that what you were supposed to do to people you loved?

She stood up and closed the distance between them, crouching in front of him to be able to catch his eye. He tried to turn away, but she cupped his cheek and gently made him look at her.

"I believe you," she said, and then slipped her hand behind his neck and pulled him closer until their foreheads touched. "I don't know what's going on, but if you say it was your mother, I believe you."

Spike closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. "Thanks," he whispered.

Buffy smiled as they finally pulled away from each other. "So this really is your time? Before you- Before your mother was sick?"

He nodded, and she let her hand linger on his face for a few more seconds before standing up to get a better look around her. The room was darker now, with just the slightest hint of sunlight still filtering through the dirty windows above. The stable lacked good conversation pieces, so she tried to summon the image of the woman - Spike's mother, she had to correct herself again - on the street. She hadn't been really paying attention, but she could vaguely remember a stern-looking young woman holding the hand of-

Her mouth dropped open.

"There was a little-"

Spike interrupted her with a groan. "Yeah, that was me, and yeah, I had hair like a bloody cherub so let's just skip the whole 'you looked like a girl' routine."

For a moment she was afraid that she had upset him again, but when she looked at him she could see a smile tugging his lips. She sat down on the crate and nudged him with her elbow, very gently so as not to hurt him. "I thought you looked cute."

"Cute?"

"Cute. Kinda like a boy Shirley Temple." She leaned over to kiss him, but then pulled away, making a face. "Oh, ew, I'm never going to able to have sex with you again, am I?"

She laughed at his annoyed growl and then shut him up with a kiss. It was a nice kiss, and for a while she thought about giving in to the messages she was receiving from parts of her body that weren't her brain, but in the end the practical Buffy won and she pulled away from him.

"Okay. No more funny stuff, we have a job to do. Do you know what year it is?"

Spike rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I recognise the horse he - iI/i - was holding. Got it from my da when I was four but lost it before my next birthday, so it must be..." He trailed off, his brow knitting in concentration. After a few seconds of silence he began counting his fingers. "Eighteen-fifty-four? Fifty-six?"

Buffy gave him a disbelieving look. "You remember a toy horse you had when you were four but you can't remember what year you were born?"

"It was a good horse! And it's not like vampires celebrate birthdays, is it? You try remembering your birth date when you're... you're..." He growled in frustration. "Hundred and bloody whatever!"

Buffy couldn't help laughing at his ire. "C'mon, are you saying you haven't had a birthday in a hundred years?" She paused. "Okay. Considering the earth-shattering events to gifts ratio of your average Buffy Birthday Bash, maybe that's not such a bad thing. But really, never? You haven't had a birthday since the time dinosaurs walked on earth?"

He gave her a mock-offended glare and then shrugged. "No. I mean, Dru had this thing that she'd sometimes invite people over and-"

Buffy groaned and rolled her eyes. "Stop. I think I know the punchline. Do you have any stories that idon't/i end with you or Drusilla eating someone?"

She regretted her words as soon as they were out. It was a delicate subject, one of the many things in their relationship labelled "Evil Stuff: Do Not Touch" and boxed away to be dug out only during most vicious fights. The fact that he still sometimes remembered fondly parts of his unsouled past. It seemed to bother him at least as much as it bothered her, and she didn't want to admit it, but in some ways, she envied Drusilla. At least he'd been happy with her - evil, yes, but happy - while the Epic Love Story of Buffy and Spike seemed to consist solely of constantly inventing novel ways of hurting each other.

"I'm sorry." She wasn't sure why she was sorry or if she was even the one who was supposed to be sorry, but she was tired of fighting with him. It seemed like fighting was all they were doing lately, and it wasn't even the sexy kind of fighting that used to lead to a bit of quick release behind the mattress pile in the training room and, in one unfortunate occasion, a seriously traumatised Xander. Some days she found herself missing even the violence and the arguments of the darkest times of their relationship because at least that was familiar ground. These days their fights were nothing but unintentional insults and passive-aggressive sniping, interspersed by overly-polite conversation that did not dare to pass to anything more controversial than "Hand me the salt, please".

Sighing, she wrapped her arm around him, gently rubbing his back before pulling him closer. He resisted at first but then gave in, burying his face in her hair.

Most recently it had been Angel and the shanshu that had taken residence as the pink fyarl in their living room. The one time she'd tried to talk to Spike about it, he'd muttered something about being "found wanting" and when she'd asked "Wanting what?" he'd only laughed bitterly and stalked out of the room. She was afraid that she was losing him, like everything they had, everything they had worked so hard for all these years would all be for nothing and that one day one of them would just give up, and that would be the end.

"The sun's down." She couldn't see his face, but his breath tickled the hairs in her neck. "We should leave if we want to get everything done before morning."

"What about your mother?" She could feel it again, that cold dread in the pit of her stomach that she was somehow in the brink of losing him.

Spike turned to look at her, and for for a brief moment his eyes glowed like embers. "It's ancient history," he said, pulling away from her touch.

He wrapped his arm around his stomach and carefully kneeled down to pick up his discarded sword from the floor before walking to the door. "Let's just find the fucking cup and go home."


End file.
